The government has sealed new flight travel arrangements for Bimini, replacing that offered by Chalks Ocean Airlines, which earlier this week pulled all its aircraft from service in the wake of a tragic plane crash.
The Ministry of Transport & Aviation has given approval for Continental Airlines to conduct daily flights between Bimini and Miami, Florida.
Those flights began as early as Thursday morning.
“Continental Airlines had applied and was approved several months ago to service flights between Bimini and Miami later on in the new year,” Transport & Aviation Minister, Glenys Hanna-Martin told the Bahama Journal.
“However, due to the tragedy as well as Chalks’ subsequent voluntary grounding, Continental has really stepped in-.”
On Wednesday, an official at Chalks Airline’s Paradise Island Office told the Bahama Journal that the company had volutarily grounded its four remaining aircraft for inspection, just two days after its 58-year-old Grumman G-73T Mallard crashed in a channel known as Government Cut, off Miami Beach shortly after takeoff.
All 20 persons aboard the ill-fated seaplane were killed. Eleven of the passengers were Biminites.
On Thursday, officials offered this explanation why Bahamasair was not selected to pick up the additional flight service in Bimini.
“There is a problem. Bahamasair’s equipment – the Dash 8 – can’t land on the strip. It’s too short. And so, there is a need for smaller equipment,” Foreign Affairs Minister, Fred Mitchell said.
“In addition, the need is not so much Nassau/Bimini, but actually the Miami/Bimini route.”
In an update on the country’s liaison with US authorities investigating the Chalk’s crash, Minister Hanna-Martin said the team of inspectors from the Department of Civil Aviation’s Flight Standards Inspectorate (FSI), which traveled to Miami immediately after the crash is now back in The Bahamas.
She said the Ministry expects to receive a final copy of the report at the completion of the investigation.
“The Ministry’s role in the crash investigation is ancillary in nature, since the tragedy took place in an American registered aircraft and within the United States,” she said.
“However, because it involved Bahamians, we will keep abreast of every development and will lend every assistance possible to the American investigators until the release of their final report.”
According to the Miami Herald, photos from this week’s deadly Chalk’s crash show a stress crack in the seaplane’s right wing – the same flaw faulted in two fatal crashes in 2002 that killed five people.
According to international reports, in both cases, the planes were at least 44-years-old.
In both cases, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) lamed fatigue on the wings’ spar and skin, adding that inadequate inspection and maintenance were contributing factors,” the Herald reported.
In the case of Chalk’s Ocean Airways Flight 101, three photographs reportedly included two close-ups of metal fatigue on one of the plane’s eight spars, which are part of the wing’s skeleton.
But Acting Chairman of the NTSB, Mark Rosenker continues to emphasize that other factors may have caused the disaster.
Meantime, Chairman of the Board of The Capo Group, owners of the Bimini Bay Resort & Casino, Gerardo Capo assured that his company would also assist in whatever assistance is required.
A memorial service is planned for the crash victims in Bimini some time next week.
By: Macushla N. Pinder, The Bahama Journal
